


The Vanishing Of Mr. James Phillimore

by Cerdic519



Series: Further Adventures Of Mr. Sherlock Holmes [77]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Fake Character Death, Impersonation, M/M, Slow Burn, Trains, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 08:12:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15681477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: One of the cases formerly listed as unsolved, in which a man steps back into his house to collect his umbrella and vanishes without a trace – or did he?





	The Vanishing Of Mr. James Phillimore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Heya_Cassbutt_Apdinof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heya_Cassbutt_Apdinof/gifts).



_Introduction by Sir Sherrinford Holmes, Baronet_

This is the first of three 'new' cases that, in the original stories, Watson listed as not having been solved. In all three instances this was untrue, and in this instance the reason was that the guilty party turned out upon investigation to have a familial link to a certain high-ranking politician from what was then a Friendly Power. I can say no more except that the bar no longer applies, and it is with pleasure that one of the more popular of the untold stories can finally be told, in which a man who did not exist still contrived to disappear. Along with his umbrella.

Kean has just quipped that an umbrella is not the only thing that can be put 'up'. He really is quite impossible. Fortunately!

۩۩۩۩V♔RI۩۩۩۩

_Narration by Doctor John Hamish Watson, M.D._

“Here?” Holmes asked.

We were standing in a hallway typical of thousands such like across England. The weak winter sun filtered through the cheap stained glass on the door, painting the parquetry floor in a rainbow of colours. I tried to remind myself that the red did not look like blood, and might therefore be a fair reflection of what had - possibly - happened here barely two hours ago. 

Holmes and I had been sat at breakfast when an urgent summons had arrived from the man currently standing on the bottom step of the flight of stairs, Mr. Robert Phillimore. His brother James had vanished in the most mysterious of circumstances, and whilst he had of course called the police he had also sent a cab across London requesting our immediate attendance. We had therefore decamped to our present location, namely the hallway of number one hundred and four Prometheus Lane in Isleworth, Middlesex. 

I looked around the place. A door to one side led into a small lounge, whilst further ones along the corridor led to a toilet, a cupboard and the kitchen respectively. The corridor itself was narrow, half the space being taken up with the staircase that ascended to the first floor (the cupboard under the stairs was locked, and I was not inclined to go poking around in the dark without a torch even if the lock-picking genius beside me had got it open). Our client, presumably expecting Holmes to run around and magically produce clues and/or his vanished brother from thin air, was getting visibly impatient.

“Five minutes, sirs”, he snapped. “I was at the gate when he came out and had just looked at my watch. It was seven forty precisely and the cab-driver was charging me for every second of the delay. My brother called out that he just had to get his umbrella as it looked like rain, and stepped back into the house. I remember that I caught a glimpse of his shadow, as he still had the hall light on with it being so dark of a morning. When I heard the town clock chime the three-quarter-hour I decided that I had waited more than long enough, so I came to the door.”

“Why had he closed the door?” Holmes asked.

“My brother was always untidy!” the man snorted balefully. “He had to close the door to reach the coat-pegs – the hallway is not large, as you can see – so he should have been out of my sight for seconds. I had thought that he might be speaking to someone in the house even though he lives alone, but when I went in after him – he was gone! Vanished!”

“Who else could have been in the house that you know of?” Holmes asked.

“That is a mystery”, Mr. Phillimore said. “No-one that I know of. He is single and is far too engrossed in his work to even consider the possibility of seeing someone.”

“Sir, your brother vanished from your sight for what should have been approximately five seconds”, Holmes said pointedly. “Assuming that we discount the possibility that Martians are real, then some earthly agency is clearly implied. You describe your brother as a fit man yet someone was able to not only to remove him from the property, but to do so in under five minutes with no apparent resistance on his part and without leaving a single trace. People do not just disappear without reason.”

Even I saw it; the briefest of hesitations before our client nodded. Holmes pounced.

“Was your brother in any danger?” he demanded brusquely.

“Not as I knew”, Mr. Phillimore said, scratching his head. “But I called round last week and he had just received a telegram that had upset him. I asked him what it was but he threw it into the fire rather than show me.”

“So you have no idea what the contents of that telegram may have been?” Holmes pressed.

“I myself had received a request for support for an Irish welfare group the day before”, the man admitted. “I looked them up, and found that as I had suspected, they were just a front for separatists. Our family was Irish a few generations back before we went to the Americas, so someone had clearly done their research. I wrote back and refused, and I heard nothing more. I did wonder from James' reaction that this might have been their approaching him but I cannot be sure.”

“Was your letter at all threatening?” Holmes asked.

“It was very cleverly worded”, the man said. “The words could have been seen as just a request, but there was an implied threat behind them. I heard nothing more, so I assumed that they had just given up. You do not think.... they have James?”

“It is one possibility”, Holmes said. “Let us examine all such, however. Who else had access to the house?”

“”No-one should have been there at that time of the morning”, our client insisted. “He has only one friend to speak of, a gentleman he knows through work. A Mr. Bellows, but he never calls before mid-day; he would terrify even your hypothetical Martian before he has had at least two cups of coffee of a morning!”

“Is there anyone else?” Holmes asked. 

“They have a cleaner, a Mrs. Adlestrop from over Sidings Lane, but she does not come round till at least eleven”, our client said. “James once told me she 'does' for someone in the street before she comes to him, although I do not know what number.”

“Curious”, Holmes said. “What do you and your brother do in the city, pray?”

The man's face darkened. I wondered why; it had seemed an innocuous enough question.

“I work as a trader in the City”, he said stiffly, “and have sufficient investments of my own to be able to do only three days a week there. James is a curator at the British Museum. I assume that you gentlemen have read of 'Hadrian's Haul'?”

I smiled at the name, given by the press to the discovery last year of a leather pouch found the year previous at a fort along Hadrian's Wall, the great Roman fortification which cut through my home county of Northumberland. The contents had at first seemed only mildly interesting – a few coins and some pins – but upon closer examination it had emerged that someone had sewn a secret message onto the inside of the pouch warning the recipient Brutus, presumably someone stationed on the Wall, of treachery within the Roman ranks that would shortly lead to an attack by the Picts beyond the border. The coins had indeed dated the pouch to around the time of just such an attack.

“James was suspended over the theft of that little bauble”, our client said angrily, “and it lasted nearly a month until one of the security guards shot himself and left a signed confession. They even tried to avoid giving my brother back-pay until I threatened to bring in a lawyer!”

“Quite right too!” I agreed, though I privately wondered if Mr. James Phillimore's subsequent disappearance threw a new light on that affair. 

“Have you ever visited your brother at work?” Holmes asked. Our client's eyes narrowed.

“What are you implying?” he demanded.

“I will be blunt”, Holmes said. “You have already told us that you are similar in appearance. It seems that someone would have a far greater motive to move against _you_ than your brother. As your detective I must consider all possibilities, especially those that endanger your good self.”

The man looked alarmed at this.

“I did visit him at work only this Saturday, two days past”, he admitted. “Well, we met for coffee during his break, not in the museum as they do not like that sort of thing. You do not think those bastard Irish are targeting me after all?”

“I would like access to your house”, Holmes said carefully. “As a professional, I may be able to see if anyone has been inside it. I would rather be safe than sorry.”

“Good heavens, yes!” he said fervently. “You don't think that they will try anything?”

“I think that you should go about your business in the city today”, Holmes said. “There is more safety in a crowd. Tell me sir, working at the British Museum would not normally merit such a house as this? Does your brother have a similar financial background to your good self?”

He smiled.

“James and I arrived from Canada about three months ago”, he explained. “A small place called Inverness on Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia. We made our fortune in the logging industry over there, and I manage our investments as he has never had a head for figures. In truth I could get by without working, but I quite like my job. And James loves his.”

I privately thought it a little odd that he claimed closeness with his brother, yet used his full name when discussing him. I might have expected 'Jamie' or even 'Jay'. Then again all families were different; I would never have called my late and un-lamented brother Harry or Hal.

“And do you always take the train in to work together?” Holmes asked. Our client shook his head.

“This was the first day that we ever did”, he said ruefully. “He only went into the Museum two days a week, usually Tuesdays and Fridays. My usual work days are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. But the Museum is starting a major new exhibition on Egyptians next month and after some of the exhibits have been delayed in their arrival he told me that it was all hands on deck. I had not seen him for a couple of weeks – I had been taking a short break in The Lakes - so we arranged to travel in together for once and catch up on each other's lives.”

My friend nodded. Mr. Phillimore seemed nervous, tapping his fingers on the stair-post. 

“Please leave instructions on one of your cards, so I may be admitted to your house in your absence”, Holmes said at last. “The doctor and I will spend another hour here at least, as there is still much to learn. I promise that I will report to you in person as soon as there is something worth reporting.”

Our client looked dubious at that, but wrote something on a card and handed it to me before hurrying from the house. Holmes waited until he had gone before speaking.

“Watson”, he said slowly, “I want you to look around this house very thoroughly and tell me what your impression of Mr. James Phillimore is. I would value an unbiased opinion, and I know that you will deliver one.”

“But are you not going to look for clues first?” I asked. He shook his head.

“I have an inkling as to which direction this case may be heading”, he said. “I have seen all that I wish to see here.”

I looked around the hallway. There seemed nothing the least out of the ordinary about it.

“This is one of those cases when I do not see what our client hopes for you to do”, I said gruffly. “It is not as if you can make Mr. James Phillimore suddenly re-appear out of thin air!”

“Who knows?” Holmes grinned. “I just might!”

I stared at him, confused.

“One thing he told me when you were outside, dealing with that child that had fallen over”, he said. “Mr. Robert Phillimore is the beneficiary of a rather impressive life insurance policy that the siblings hold on each other, so naturally the insurance company will be reluctant to pay out until it can be established exactly what happened to his brother. And, of course, that he himself played no part in it.”

“You think that he may have killed his brother?” I asked, surprised.

He pulled out a book from his pocket and sat on the stairs. Then he looked up at me and smiled.

“I am one hundred per cent certain that he could not have done”, he said.

What?

۩۩۩۩V♔RI۩۩۩۩

After my examination of the house of the vanished man I came back down the stairs to find Holmes waiting for me. To my surprise he did not immediately demand the results of my examinations but insisted on an immediate drive to Mr. Robert Phillimore's house just across the Thames in Richmond, where he asked me to do exactly the same. The cleaner, a Mrs. Martin, looked at me in some surprise but fortunately said nothing.

Holmes surprised me again when we got back to Richmond Station by taking not the direct train back to Waterloo but the slow suburban North London Railway one as far as Willesden Junction. We could get from there to Baker Street, but it would surely take longer?

“Tell me about your impressions of the two brothers”, he said once the train had started. I flicked open my notebook. 

“Mr. James Phillimore is most careful with his money”, I began. “Ebenezer Scrooge would have been proud of him. There were several things that had been patched up, including a blanket that was barely serviceable. He had a lot of second-hand books, including of course many history ones. Ancient Greece seemed to be a particular interest. He had rather too many of those scented candles that women seem to like nowadays. And he did not seem to like wearing suits.”

“Why do you say that?” Holmes asked.

“His work clothes apart, he only had one formal suit and that a second-hand one from his brother”, I said. “There was a bill in the pocket for adjustments, presumably to fit him; I noticed that his clothes had longer legs. He definitely did _not_ like gardening; I took one look outside the back door and that more than was enough! He did not seem to like cooking much, either; there was little food in the kitchen but several leaflets for local restaurants. There was only one thing I found odd.”

“What?” Holmes asked. 

“He had an underground railway ticket for his journey to work last week”, I said. “I know underground tickets do not get clipped, but they always get surrendered at the end of the journey. I do not see how or why he kept it, unless he knows someone who collects the things.”

“Well observed”, Holmes said with a smile. “Now, Mr. Robert Phillimore.”

“The man is a tidiness freak!” I muttered. “Either that, or he deducts a farthing from his cleaner's wage-packet for each and every speck of dust that he finds once she has gone. But he does share his brother's care when dealing with money. He has a disturbingly large collection of romantic novels, but thankfully his house is candle-free.”

Holmes smiled.

“Apart from the financial aspect and the number of books, they have little in common”, I said. “Our client's garden is infinitely superior, in that there could not be a Bengal tiger lurking somewhere in it. I spoke to one of his neighbours over the back fence, a Mrs. Parsley. She said he keeps the garden himself and is more often away from the house than not, but a decent enough person when home. Very quiet too, she said. She knew that his bother visited from time to time as she had heard them talking, but she had never met the man.”

“Interesting”, my friend said. “Yes, it all adds up.” 

And he would say no more. Harrumph!

۩۩۩۩V♔RI۩۩۩۩

When we reached Willesden we changed not to the direct line to Baker Street but the branch down through Primrose Hill to Euston. Holmes' reason for this emerged when he visited the stationmaster's office at the grand terminus and asked politely if he could talk with the staff who had been selling tickets that morning. One had since gone home but he was able to talk with six of them, and came away with the sort of look a cat has when it has just got the cream. 

“We will divert to the see Inspector Gregson as he is our nearest friend in the area”, he said with a smile. “This has been a most interesting case, and with luck we may have it all wrapped up tonight.”

“You may”, I pouted. “I am all at sea.”

“It is your observations that have helped confirm my theory”, he said, far too reasonably. “And you have seen all that I have seen.”

“That is the trouble”, I said crossly. “I have, and I am _still_ all at sea!”

۩۩۩۩V♔RI۩۩۩۩

We were fortunate to find Inspector Gregson in the middle of completing paperwork (did policemen at his level ever finish their form-filling, I wondered?), and he was pleased to accompany us. We arrived back at Baker Street and Holmes seemed surprised for some reason.

“He is late”, he said in a put-upon tone. “Highly unreasonable of him.”

“Who is late?” I asked.

“The man behind the disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore”, he said, as if it were obvious. “We shall send to Mrs. Hudson for some tea and cakes whilst we wait.”

We followed him up and were soon joined by a tray of welcome hot drinks and refreshments. It seemed that Holmes' guest had disobliged him, but I should have known better. I had just finished my first cup when there was the sound of heavy feet on the stairs, and moments later the door burst open to admit....

Mr. Robert Phillimore?

“Gentlemen”, he panted, waving a telegram frantically at us. “I got home.... this was there..... James is in Ireland!”

I took the telegram which turned out to be anonymous. It stated that Mr. James Phillimore had been kidnapped and was being taken to Ireland. His captors demanded a large sum of money from his brother for his safe return, and the recipient only had forty-eight hours to respond or they would kill their hostage. Any attempt to communicate with the police would result in the man's immediate execution. Further instructions were to follow.

“Why was there no sign of a scuffle?” I wondered.

“Maybe they used chloroform”, the sergeant suggested. 

“There was a path along the back”, I said. “I could see it from the house, and only a latched gate in between. A pity that I did not fight my way through that nightmare of a back garden and check it.”

“Could you raise this money?” Holmes asked, looking surprisingly calm.

“I will!” Mr. Phillimore said firmly. “James' life is at stake!”

“I hardly think so.”

We all looked at him in surprise. He smiled lazily, stood up and walked round to close the door behind Mr. Phillimore. 

What he did next caught me totally unaware. Before our visitor could turn to face him, he suddenly found himself handcuffed.

“The game is up”, Holmes said softly. “Mr. Robert Phillimore. Or whatever your real name is.”

Our visitor's face contorted with rage, and he struggled angrily against his bonds, but Inspector Gregson slipped round and added his own set. With that he seemed resigned to his fate, and slumped against the wall.

“You bastard!” he snarled at Holmes. “How did you guess?”

Holmes looked affronted.

“I never 'guess'”, he said loftily. “I all but knew, and fortunately your actions after the crime gave you away.”

“He killed his own brother?” I asked.

“He has no brother”, Holmes said. “Mr. James Phillimore never existed; his sole purpose was to defraud the Metropolis Insurance Company of a large sum of money so that this man can continue in the lifestyle that he believes is his as of right!”

I stared at my friend. The inspector was equally dumbstruck

“This man arrives from Canada or wherever he is really from”, Holmes said. He is playing for high stakes, so he is prepared to invest some of his future ill-gotten gains. A little manipulation, and it is made to appear that two brothers have come to England. He settles in semi-rural Middlesex, and establishes two identities. Robert, the man who can handle figures and manages the family finances, and James, the dreamer who works part-time for the British Museum. Which is where the whole thing nearly unravels.”

“Like most criminals, passing up the chance of additional wealth proves irresistible. A rare artifact is on show at the Museum, and he succumbs to temptation thinking that he can sell it for, as the Americans say, 'a fast buck'. The real Mr. James Phillimore, had he ever existed, would have foreseen the hue and cry that would arise over the theft of such a unique item. Our man here panics and manages to frame an innocent co-worker at the Museum, placing the bag in his house before shooting him and making it appear as suicide. All goes well for him, and in the subsequent confrontation with the Museum over back pay he gains the bonus of reinforcing the idea that 'Robert' and 'James' are two different people.”

Holmes turned to me.

“Whilst you were investigating the two houses”, he said, “I talked with as many local people as I could find. It boosted my theory in that not one of them could remember ever having _seen_ the brothers together, though Mrs. Parsley was not the only one to overhear them talking to each other. A one-man conversation, of course.”

Our prisoner scowled.

“Sustaining such an illusion is dangerous the longer it goes on, so he is quick to bring things to a conclusion”, Holmes said. “A major exhibition at the Museum means that 'Robert' has to go in on a day that 'James' works; you may recall how their work days did not overlap. 'Robert' returns from The Lakes and arranges to go into work with 'James' in order to catch up on what has happened in their lives. He calls for his brother that morning, something you will remember that he has never done before.”

“He times things so that, shortly before the town hall clock strikes the three-quarter hour he is there outside the house, and some innocent passers-by are there to witness his impatience. They see him storm up the garden path, push open the door, and find his brother 'gone'. He is fortunate – although it was a safe bet - that the people succumb to the human sin of curiosity and wait to watch what happens, so he is able to come out immediately and urge one of them to fetch the police.”

“He called you in though”, I pointed out. Holmes smiled.

“Indeed”, he said. “What further steps could the poor brother do to establish that facts than call in London's premier consulting detective? Should I fail to find the man who never was, his innocence is clear. Yet the clues were there, if one looked for them.”

“What clues?” I demanded. 

“First the area around the doorway”, Holmes said. “It was clean.”

Gregson and I both stared at him in confusion.

“So what?” the policeman asked. Holmes chuckled.

“Gentlemen, that area in private houses is subject to particular wear and tear”, he said. “A quick examination of the rest of the house showed it had been cleaned to the standard one might expect of a cleaning lady, yet the hallway was spotless. Someone had taken the trouble to clean away absolutely any trace of anything. And the kitchen had barely been used, yet the man had been there for a month, allegedly. No-one can dine out all the time.”

“What else?” I asked.

“The sole suit was unusual, especially as someone with the wealth of Mr. James Phillimore would not usually have skimped on formal wear, let alone have borrowed and adjusted a suit from his brother”, Holmes said. “He would have done better to have invested a little more into this charade there. The underground ticket was purchased to reinforce an absent-mindedness that was different from his brother's focus and care for detail. And perhaps most damningly of all there was the staircase.”

“What about the staircase?” I asked. “It looked perfectly normal.”

“I challenged our prisoner here as to whether or not 'James' wore a ring”, Holmes said. “I predicted, correctly as it turned out, that as 'Robert' wore one then his brother would not. But my examination of the stair-post at the bottom of the stairs showed that someone had repeatedly come down and used that post to pull themselves round to go to the kitchen, and that that someone had worn a ring which had begun to remove the paint from the post. I dare say that a close examination of the man's ring would show marks that correspond perfectly.”

Inspector Gregson went over to the man and, with my help, removed the ring from his unwilling hand. He looked closely at it and nodded to Holmes.

“You will remember that the man left us around mid-morning”, Holmes went on. “He did not go to the city. Instead he went to Euston station to catch a train.”

“How can you know that?” our prisoner grunted. “You had me followed or something?”

Holmes waved the telegram at him. 

“This is sent from the telegraph office of the London & North Western Railway at their Lime Street station in Liverpool”, he said.

“That was why you went to Euston!” I exclaimed. He nodded.

“One of the ticket-vendors recognized the description I gave of you”, Holmes told our prisoner, whose scowl only deepened. “And I am certain that when we wire to Liverpool, someone at the telegraph office there will do so as well. You just had time to catch a train there, send a message ostensibly from your brother's captors, then return to London to 'receive the dreadful news'.”

“It's only fraud!” our prisoner objected. “No-one got killed!”

“You are forgetting Mr. Andrew Meadows, the co-worker whom you murdered to cover your museum theft”, Holmes said. “I feel sure that we can search your house and find enough evidence to convict you of that. And murder, sir, is rightly a hanging offence!”

۩۩۩۩V♔RI۩۩۩۩

He was right. Unfortunately the villain's real identity – which sadly I cannot reveal here – established a connection to a Foreign Personage of such import that Holmes' brother Mycroft came to Baker Street and had the good sense (for once) to ask rather than demand that I not publish the case, or not at least for many a year. Reluctantly I agreed, although I did slip a reference to it into a later case that did see the light of day. And Holmes was offered a large reward from the Metropolis Insurance Company, but insisted on their making it over to the widow and family of the slain Mr. Meadows. His slayer was removed to the Foreign Power on the very clear understanding that he would remain in gaol for the rest of his unnatural life, and he died there only five years after departing England.

۩۩۩۩V♔RI۩۩۩۩


End file.
